THREE-DAY WARM-UP MATCH: SAGICOR HPC VS ZIMBABWE
Day 3 at the Desmond Haynes Oval, Black Rock, Barbados, 09 March 2013
Result: Zimbabwe (255/8 dec & 209/7) drew with the Sagicor High Performance Centre (230).
The Sagicor High Performance Centre went into the third and final day of their match against Zimbabwe trailing by 42 runs in their first innings, with three wickets in hand.
But their efforts to erase that margin came to naught as Graeme Cremer, five for 74 in his 21 overs on day two, continued spinning his magic, this time to lap up the HPC tail.
First to fall to his trickery was Jason Dawes, leg before wicket, after one run had been added to the overnight total but this was no thanks to Dawes as he went without troubling the scorers. The score was now 214 for eight.
Next to fall was Jomel Warrican, again trapped lbw. Again a duck, but this one golden. Nine wickets gone for 214 runs. Then Tendai Chatara joined the Cremer show and got Miguel Cummins (2) lbw.
HPC had added 17 to their overnight score, for the loss of their tail. And so their innings ended on 230.
Cremer finished with seven wickets for 79 runs in 24 overs, Kyle Jarvis two for 40 in 14 and Chatara one for 36 in 9.4 overs.
Zimbabwe put up 209 runs for seven wickets before the match ended drawn.
Other than opener Vusimuzi Sibanda who put up 80 runs off 108 balls (13 fours) before he was caught by Jermaine Blackwood from the bowling of Warrican, the other Zimbabwe batsmen were subdued and failed to take their totals to substantial amounts with an unbeaten 26 from Hamilton Masakadza – pushed down the order to give the other batsmen time out in the middle – the second highest knock followed by 20 from captain Brendan Taylor who was looking like he had finally regained his form when he was bowled by Blackwood and then 16 runs from the other opener, Tinotenda Mawoyo, whose innings came to an end when he was caught by Warrican off Cummins.
The three-day warm-up match was part of Zimbabwe’s preparation for the first Test of the West Indies International Home Series 2013, which starts on Tuesday at the Kensington Oval, referred to affectionately by the locals as “The Mecca” of cricket.
